What's In A Name
by lakemiller
Summary: So I decided against this being a one part story. I am still working on the other story No Questions, it's just taking awhile for me to finish it.
1. Chapter 1

**Disclaimer: I own nothing except the Guards...and Joey.**

Enjoy and review!**

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Finding the guard that is suppose to be watching over you dead is never the best thing to find. Well that is exactly what I found when I stepped off the elevator in my penthouse complex. Lex Carpentor was dead. The two hundred twenty plus guard was dead on my doorstep. That was never a good sign. When I noticed the door I knew it was business related. "MAFIA PRINCESS" was written in Lex's blood across my penthouse door.

My name was Josephina "Joey" Corinthos, sister and partern to Michael "Sonny" Corinthos, mob king pin to Port Charles, New York. I was always being confused for being a guy, just because of the nickname. To most of the mob world though I was known as the Mafia Princess, hence the blood on the door. To my family (my brother and his family) and friends I was Joey, the crazy, cocky, spunky, down to earth, loving person. My friends and I lived together, but I knew that they weren't home, they were still at PCU (college) a place I would never set foot at. That was a good thing I would have plenty of time to clean up the mess.

"Corinthos-Morgan. Mike speaking." I heard as I held the phone to my ear, stepped over Lex's body, pulled the sleeve of my jacket down over my hand and opened the door with it.

"Sonny." I said as I almost tripped over my ransacked penthouse.

"He's in a meeting."

"Mike, put him on the phone. I know that there isn't a meeting today." I replied as I swore under my breath after I stubbed my toe on a turned over table.

"Sorry Joey. I didn't realize it wa syou hold on." Mike said as he put me on hold.

"Hey Angel. What's going on?" Sonny's voice filled my ear.

"I need two guys. Lex is dead and my penthosue is ransacked. And my door needs to be replaced." I said as I continued to pick up pieces of broken objects.

"Jose what happened?"

"To be honest I think we have a problem with territory."

"Let me guess. Five families meeting on your mind? I'll send Seth and Dan. Then I will set up the meeting."

"Dammit!" I swore out loud on the phone. I was now bleeding from the palm of my hand. I had picked up a broken picture frame and the glass had slipped out and caught my hand.

"What!" Sonny's concerned voice filled my head.

"Cut myself. Listen I have to pick up the house so that when Georgie, Dillon, Maxie, Jesse and Lucas come home it's not a mess." I said as I marched toward the sink to run my hand under water.

"Ok Angel. They are on their way. I'll call you about the meeting. Take care. Love you." Click.

Okay so now I had to find a way to clean the house, change the door, get stiches and still be home before anybody else got home.

Knock...Knock...Knock.

"Hold on." I said as I tried to find a way to get to the door without hurting myself anymore.

"Joey! It's just us." I heard Seth yell.

"Doors open!" I yelled back and watched as the door swung open to reveal two men about two years older then myself.

"Oh my god."

"Now take Lex and the door. And I need three more guys to help with the clean up so I can get stiched up." I said as I tried to stop the tears from coming. My hand hurt like hell and there was no way I was going to clean the house before anybody else got home. Sometimes being the mafia princess sucked.

"Go. We'll pick up here. Go get those stiches. The house will be fine and clean by the time everybody gets home." Dan said as he helped me to the elevator and handed me my purse.

Ten stiches and three hours later, I walked back into a very clean penthouse new door and no blood stains.

"Good. You're home. What were Seth, Dan, Logan, Felix, and Jordan doing here? They wouldn't tell us anything." Georgie asked as she, Dillon, Maxie, Jesse, and Lucas came walking into the living room. My hand was wrapped andI was in need of one of the pain killers badly.

"Joey what happened to your hand?" Maxie asked as I set my purse on the now upright desk.

"Business." That was all I was going to say. I turned towards the stairs, I needed a shower and a pain killer. They knew I wasn't going to say any more, they couldn't know what had happened . Of course replacing Lex and the door would probably give away the answers as well.

"Why is Lex gone?" Jesse asked as the cop in him was coming out. That's right I said cop. And yet he was one of my closes friends.

"CHRIST! Once again business. You push anymore and so help me, Lex won't be the only one." I said as I was now looking at the mortified faces of all my friends. "Sorry. I'm just in pain. And I'm frustrated. Sorry."I said as I was cracking. The mafia princess was starting to cry.

"HeyJoe. It's okay. We didn't mean to jump all over you. It's just this is the thrid guard in two months. Are we in danger?" Lucas asked as he gave me a hug and rubbed my back.

"I don't know yet. Thank you. Now if y'all don't mind I'm going to get a shower and then go to bed." I said as I wiped the tears on my face and smiled at them. "Once again I'm sorry. Night y'all." I said as I walked up the stairs and disappeared around the corner. The shower was calling my name and I was going to enjoy the hot water falling over my body. The shower did take the stench of the horrifying day. Boy those pain killers were taking effect, I was tired and needed to get our before I passed out in the shower.

Two days later, one new door, new guard and pain still in my hand. Life was always changing and today was no exception.

Bang...Bang...Bang...

"What the hell?" I was sitting watching a movie with Maxie, Lucas, Georgie, and Dillon. Jesse was at work. "Y'all sit tight." I said as the sound faded. I walked towards the door grabbing my gunon the way by the desk. "Turn around so y'all can't see this." I knew the sound so well it was of three shots. They all did as they were told.

I opened the door and knewI was going to be having another conversation with Sonny about setting up a five families meeting soon. Like I said life was always changing. This was just how life was when you're in the Mafia. I was use to it but my friends weren't and I knew now that we were going to have to be going to a safe house this afternoon as soon as Jesse got out of work. If they didn't like it that was too bad I needed to protect my friends and the only way I knew how to do that was to go to a safe house where nobody could find us for a couple of days. That was until Sonny and I had taken care of the problem.

"Go pack. Now. Pack for at least three weeks." I said as I watched the four of them run up the stairs and around the corner. "Sonny. Five families meeting tonight. Arange it." I said into my cell phone as I was now walking up the stairs to go pack.

"Why?"

"Greg. Shots. I'm taking the guys to the safe house." I said as I walked into Maxie and Jesse's room. "Pack for Jesse." I said as I put my hand over the phone and was talking to Maxie. "Call him and tell him to meet us at Kelly's in ten minutes." I said as I walked out of the room and down the hall to my room.

"I'll meet you guys at Kelly's." Sonny said as I hung up my phone and started to pack. This was going to be one of the longest three weeks of my life. But this was the life I chose, and I knew how to deal with being without contact with my family, but my friends, they didn't. Like I said this was going to be three very long weeks.


	2. Chapter 2

**Disclaimer: I own nothing. Except characters that are unknown.**

Greg was now dead that made four in the past two months. I was not, liking the feeling of being powerless. I had grown up with power and now in the past two months all I did was worry about every time my friends would leave the house, would they be okay, would they be able to protect themselves if need be. I couldn't stop the questions from coming. I was use to the protecting and the being okay but that was because I had grown up to be the mafia princess and I knew what come with the title. Sonny and brought me up to be proud and to protect myself with everything I have.

As I stood at the top of the stairs ushering my friends down the back way to a waiting car to take us to Kelly's I was sure that my friends were scared. I was scared and this was the life I worked, and had for nearly my entire life. Jesse was going to meet us at Kelly's so that I could escort them to a safe house on the other side of town. We would be staying there until I knew that we were safe. Being safe was more important to me then being in power of my home. I couldn't risk losing my friends and family like I had lost my mother and father.

My mother and father had died when I was too young to remember, I grew up in foster care well, that was all of about four years until Sonny was able to adopt me. Sonny was ten years older then myself, which made all the difference in the world. I was eight when first introduced to the mafia world, and now nearly thirteen years later I was not about to leave. Nor could I even if I wanted to. I knew too much, at least that is what I was told when I eleven.

We had made it to the safe house successfully and I was now in the upstairs office tending to business when a scream came from below me.

"JOEY!" I heard from the kitchen as I came running down the stairs to see who and what had caused the yell.

"What's going on? Who's yelling?" I asked as I marched in to the kitchen to find Georgie standing in the kitchen holding her hand, blood pooling around her feet.

"I um….cut myself." She stammered as I walked over to her.

"I can see that sweetie. Dillon call Sonny tell him to get a car over here and that I need to take Georgie to get stitches in her hand." I said as I wrapped a cloth around her hand and applied pressure to it to help stop the bleeding.

"You got it."

Ten minutes later Georgie and I walked into General Hospital and straight to the Nurses Station in search of her cousin Robin Scorpio.

"Hey you two. What happened Georgie?" She asked full of concern for her cousin.

"I cut myself peeling potatoes." She replied and I walked over to the waiting area, while she went and got the stitches.

"Well, Ms. Corinthos what are you here for today?" I heard a voice I knew that I shouldn't be around.

"Well, well, well. What do we have here? The long last tattooed dog?" I asked as Manny Ruiz, walked past me. The lone enemy, that even though he was "cured" I knew of the lie he told. He was the last person anybody in the hospital should be around and now he was here working his community service hours off.

"Hey I'm all stitched and ready to go." I heard Georgie say as she came walking around the corner with Robin, and Dr. Patrick Drake.

"Alrighty, then we are out of here." I said as I stood up and proceeded to collapse. This was not how the day was suppose to go. I wish that my life was a little less dramatic on days when I didn't need more drama added to it.

"I got her. I just need a room ASAP." I somewhat heard Dr. Drake say as he lifted me in his arms and carried me to the nearest empty hospital bed and laid me down.

"Georgie why don't you go call Sonny or Jason and let them know what is going on. We'll try and figure our what caused her to collapse." Robin said to a scared Georgie as she walked her out the door.

"Joey if you can hear me squeeze my hand." I heard Robin say as she and Dr. Drake started to argue, (something they did hourly.) I responded my squeezing her hand, it let her know that I could hear what was going on around me.

"Good girl. Now I need you to open your eyes. Come on open the baby blues for me. Please. Come on Joey." As hard as I tried I couldn't open them. Finally, they decided that they wanted to open and open they did, only everything was very fuzzy.

"Now that is what I like to see." Dr. Drake said as if I was another blonde bimbo he was sleeping with.

"Dr. Drake that was uncalled for. Excuse him Joe, he's not the best with his bed side manner." Robin said as if I didn't already know.

"Okay so either Jason or Sonny on their way." Georgie said as she walked back in and was surprised to see me awake. "What happened to her?" She asked.

"I'll tell you what happened. I let stress get the better of me." I said as I finally was able to speak. "Now let me out of this damn hospital bed before I break something." I said as I started to get out of it.

"Now wait just one minute there. I am not letting you leave here without be completely checked out." Patrick said as if I was actually going to answer to him.

"I wouldn't bother trying Patrick. She's a Corinthos, and they don't do hospital stays very willingly." Robin said as I was now standing next to Georgie and pulling my coat on in the process.

"Fine but don't come crying to me when something else goes wrong." He said in a huff.

"First off Dr. Drake, I don't go crying to anybody and even if I did you would have to be the last person on the planet, before I'd even considered coming to you." I said and with that Georgie and I were walking out of the hospital.

"Joey. Hey wait up is everything okay?" I heard Jason ask as he came running up to the two of us.

"Yes everything is just fine. Stress just got the better of me now can you take us back to the safe house. Please?" I asked as I climbed into his waiting SUV outside of the hospital.


	3. Chapter 3

**Disclaimer: I own nothing except everything unknown.**

How is it that even when it looks like things are going really bad they get worse? That was the question of the day for me. Everything appeared to be getting worse by the hour, including the headache I was starting to get. My encounter with Manny Ruiz was unpleasant and yet I knew there was another motive behind why he even said one word to me. And that motive reared it's ugly head the following day, when upon my waking up I found the living room to the "safe house" ransacked. This then again involved everybody packing up, yet again and moving to the opposite side of town to another safe house. My friends were beginning to become PO'd at me.

I was even starting to get pissed off at Sonny and the whole damn five families because whatever happened at the meeting definitely had no affect on the men. That just meant it was time to play dirty. I had called Sonny and told him things were about to go down, and it wasn't going to be very pretty. He had said that he would have Max (the best guard) watch the house while I took care of the business and that he would be there with Jason if I needed help. He also knew that probably wasn't going to be likely but he was always where you needed him no matter what happened.

Four hours later I was dressed in a pair of low slug black pants, a v-neck blue halter-top, open toed stilettos, and my .45 poking into my back. I was off to a surprise five families meeting, taking matters into my own hands.

With every step I took the louder the clicking of my heels became to the five men sitting alone in the empty warehouse, waiting and yet knowing that what was about to happen was not a real surprise. See when a Corinthos calls a five families meeting out of the blue they all know it's never a good thing.

"Boys." I said as I walked into the empty room, hands on my hips and my head held high.

"Josephina. What the hell is the meeting about we already got a visit from your brother, so why are we being called back for another one with you?" Escabor asked as all five men stood up to show their respect for my presence, that and I was a lady.

"Well. Now when I woke up this morning boy wasn't I surprise to find the safe house I was staying with friends trashed. And not by them. Then I learn that somebody here has been backing Manny Ruiz for the past four months, and that is when it all started to hit the fan. So y'all are going to listen and listen good. If I find out that it was indeed Manny that trashed my house and safety ness of my friends so help me god the one backing him will be paying with his life. Or that of their loved ones." I said as paced around the table and around the five men sitting there facing me.

"Who is the backer and how did you find out?" Phoenix asked as I started to laugh.

"What are we fifth graders, you all know who the backer is and how I found out remember who you are talking to? But if you honestly don't know then I suggest you figure it because it will get ugly the minute one of you slips and says too much. Something you are all famous for doing so easily. So I suggest that the one who is backing figure out a way to tame to the lone tattooed dog and pay me for the damages he caused. Because things are going to get dirty rather quickly if I don't have a name here and now." I said as I pulled the 45 from my back and pointed it at the ceiling. Four shoots rang out and the five men dove for the floor. "Just making sure you get the warning loud and clear." I said as I put the gun back and turned on my heel and walked out the door. They were not done with Joey Corinthos yet and it was going to be a long time before they got rid of me.

As I walked out of the warehouse I found Jason and Sonny standing there waiting for me with smiles on their faces.

"You okay? We heard the gun fire." Jason asked as he turned me around to make sure I was spilling blood everywhere.

"Just fine. I was just spelling out the warning. Now I need to go home and take a shower to get rid of the smell." I said as I smiled at Sonny and walked over to the waiting limo and climbed in. My day was looking better already and it was only noontime. For me shooting a gun, whether at somebody or at a target, always relaxed me. And as weird as that sounds I needed to be relaxed for what was about to go down. Information I was not about to tell even Sonny or Jason, nor the five families, I was taking down Manny Ruiz and I was doing it tonight; by myself.


	4. Chapter 4

**Disclaimer: Once again y'all know it by now.**

The timing was perfect Sonny nor Jason knew what I had planned and I was going to keep it that way. I walked out of the house telling Dillon that I would be out for a while but that if anything happened and I wasn't back in two hours to call Sonny. I quietly walked down the back ally hoping that the clicking of my heels was only my imagination. But nope I knew that the attack that I had planned was only going to go as well as I had hoped. I had my gun in front of me and, a sharp eye watching for things to move.

"Well, Kitten I didn't actually think that you were going to show up but now that you have showed up, I think we can take care of business." I heard the hiss of the man I was looking for. "And I see you came alone. What a surprise. Does Sonny or Jason know that you are here doing their business for them?"

"First off you forget that my name is Corinthos and that this is just as much my business as it is theirs. Secondly, they didn't need to know because when I get through with you they won't need to worry about you again." I said as I smiled through the venom coming from my mouth.

"I like how you think kitten except that they will still be worried because I don't give up without a fight. So here's a clue as to what you need to learn about me. I'm like a cat, you may try to kill me but I'm just gonna keep on coming back." He said as he paced around me trying to figure out a way to get the gun out of my hands.

With one look I knew what he was thinking, and without a second thought I pulled the trigger, and shot him in the chest. I watched him fall and tried to stop smiling but wouldn't you know I couldn't. I had shot the man that had put me and my friends through so much hell in the past two and a half months that I couldn't stop smiling down at the limb body at my feet.

"Corinthos?" I heard Sonny ask into the phone.

"Hey I need a guy at the empty warehouse on Minot Ave. I've got a body clean up for them." I said as I walked to my car and turned it on.

"Joey. What the hell did you do?"

"Oh just took care of a rat problem." I said as I pulled out of the parking space and onto the street to my left on my way back to the safe house.

"Josephina Rachel Corinthos. You tell me what you did and you tell me now." He said as I tried not to laugh in his face.

"Sonny you are so worried about nothing. Just get a guy down there now. And then I will stop by your place and tell you to your face. I promise." I said as I pulled into the driveway of the safe house and walked inside to check in with Dillon.

"Fine but you better be here in twenty minutes or I'm going to start to worry about you." He said and then hung up. Boy was I in for one hell of a yelling match. It was not going to be a very pretty thing. But that was what happened when you did things behind your brother's back, that could result in hiim getting in trouble.

I couldn't stop smiling as I drove down the road to Sonny's knowing full well he was either going to be so pissed at me that I wasn't going to be able to help myself and I'd start crying or he'd be so proud of me that I'd be drinking a beer in ten minutes. Either way I knew Sonny was going to apologize for underestimating me the ssame way that the members of the five families had eariler in the afternoon.

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Not long I know and I'm sorry but it is becoming very hard for me to stay on topic when i have four or five stories going on. Plus I have three other stories under the Gilmore Girls. 


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